Thoughts on the second Trump impeachment trial

Patrick Corso, Staff Writer

It has been over a month since the horrific insurrection on the U.S. Capitol. The attack left five people, including a police officer, dead. It was the darkest day in the history of the United States since the War of 1812, and by far the worst major event in the 21st century.

Now with former President Donald Trump acquitted of inciting the insurrection, many are worried about him running for president in 2024. Trump’s goal of the attack was to disrupt, delay and overturn the 2020 election results after Democratic candidate Joe Biden pulled off a rare defeat of a sitting president. Many members of the misogynistic group Proud Boys directed the riot, which involved bypassing security, vandalizing Capitol property and even assaulting police officers. Nearly 140 officers were hurt in the attack, including 15 that had to be hospitalized.Even before the winner of the 2020 election was declared, Trump repeatedly made false claims of election fraud and misinformation, which led to Twitter labeling many of his tweets with the caveat “this claim is disputed.” Instagram, on the other hand, removed the ‘recent’ tab from all hashtag pages until Dec. 10, 2020 to help curtail election fraud. When the insurrection happened, Trump lost all of his biggest megaphones such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube, which all suspended his accounts. He had one of the most-followed Twitter accounts in history, garnering nearly 90 million followers.

Trump’s involvement in the insurrection made history as he became the first federal office holder and U.S. president to be impeached a second time, after first being impeached for obstructing Congress by helping Ukraine influence the 2020 election the previous year. His acquittal of both impeachment trials sparked outrage from Democratic supporters in the United States. However, many are hoping he cannot run for office again in 2024. If he does and ends up winning, he would be the first person in almost a century to hold the presidency twice, after Grover Cleveland.

When Trump was suspended, he felt he could join Parler, which has a userbase of mainly Trump supporters. Following the insurrection, Amazon Web Services cancelled Parler’s services, essentially leaving them in the dust. Parler still, to this day, remains offline. Far-right network Gab was also used to coordinate the attack. The site had previously been taken offline back in October 2018 when a gunman killed almost a dozen people at a synagogue in Pittsburgh.

The insurrection was the reason why Joe Biden ranked Donald Trump the worst president in American history. Trump made a number of missteps in 2020, including the poor handling of the coronavirus pandemic to his scandal involving Ukraine. Ever since Biden took office, he has reversed many of Trump’s executive orders that caused backlash. Even if Trump runs for office again, although he may never be allowed to, spreading of misinformation could happen again, even though his internet presence has been pulled into the past. After the insurrection that led to his Twitter suspension, Trump tweeted his peaceful transition on Inauguration Day.